Niki Savva book extract: Inside Peter Dutton’s $17 billion blunder

To its everlasting shame, on the night of March 25, 2025, the Liberal Party trashed a legacy it had cherished for decades as the party of lower taxes. Caught in a steel trap expertly laid by Labor, Liberals ceded a mantle, once deemed sacred, that went to the very core of its being.

The dramatic role reversal that night, as Anthony Albanese prepared to call the election, also killed whatever chance the opposition had of branding itself during the campaign as the superior economic managers and Labor as the party of high taxes and big spending.

The decision to oppose Labor’s $17 billion tax-cut package was made by Peter Dutton in the budget lock-up.

The plan to offer a tax cut had been kept secret for months, deemed “close hold” in the language of insiders, which meant it was not to be di